Abstract: | We present a continuous-wave-pumped fiber optical parametric amplifier, operating near 1539 nm in conventional dispersion-shifted fiber, with maximum on-off gain and wavelength-conversion efficiency of 13.7 and 13.1 dB, respectively. In addition, we show a novel configuration based on Raman amplification assistance in the parametric gain fiber that further increases the gain and wavelength-conversion efficiencies to 16.7 and 16.2 dB, respectively. |